Having a chart as an SVG grow or shrink in size based on the size of the browser windows is radically easier with SVG than CSS.
Dynamically growing/shrinking a piechart in CSS is much more difficult to implement. Where as with SVG, it just works as-is and no additional effort needs to be done to make it work.
The coining of “responsive web design” was a reference to architecture which responds to its present occupants. It’s not about changing shape, it’s about making the same content and experience available regardless of environment. Changing shape or layout is a technique to achieve that, not a defining characteristic.
Regarding changing layout in SVG, you just need the `use` tag.
Again, by your definition, every non-fixed-width HTML page could be called responsive. I don’t think so.
Responsive does include other methods as well, but nobody looks at a CSS-less page and calls that responsive because the text always fits the window. That’s just too broad of a definition.
The comment I was replying to specifically mentioned that “SVGs are responsive because they resize without additional effort.” That’s blatantly false. “No additional effort” only gives you an SVG that scales (just like images can, and you don’t call images responsive)
On review, however, SVGs can be made responsive, it’s just that it’s not easier than regular HTML.
> Again, by your definition, every non-fixed-width HTML page could be called responsive. I don’t think so.
> Responsive does include other methods as well, but nobody looks at a CSS-less page and calls that responsive because the text always fits the window. That’s just too broad of a definition.
Why? You’re the one making the claim here. The original coining of the term and the author’s 10 year piece certainly talk about other techniques. But not as some formal definition, rather as ways to achieve the original goal: one design which serves all. If the design has the default layout, why would it need to do more?
> The comment I was replying to specifically mentioned that “SVGs are responsive because they resize without additional effort.” That’s blatantly false. “No additional effort” only gives you an SVG that scales (just like images can, and you don’t call images responsive)
Now this is beyond the pale. Just search “responsive images” and filter for before the picture tag and srcset attribute and you’ll see that this is exactly what was expected. Of course you can do more now, but I don’t think it’s even common practice except when automated by tooling.
But more than that, depending on usage, there are ways SVG can scale that raster images can’t. Position and size can scale independently. Images which benefit from it can change aspect ratio without a problem (you can see an example of this on my personal site, link in profile, scaling from very wide to very narrow).
Dynamically growing/shrinking a piechart in CSS is much more difficult to implement. Where as with SVG, it just works as-is and no additional effort needs to be done to make it work.